With all the designs for orbital craft that have been developed over the years some must be worthwhile exploring. Some of the older concepts that were thought impractical or to expensive in the 50s and 60s might be worth another look in view of the new materials, advances in electronics and improvements in engine technology.

If NASA or the owners of the designs do not want to exploit these because of the rush to get a new CEV, why not allow groups ompeting for the Americas Cup free access to the designs and data already in existence to speed up the production of orbital craft for Bigelow?

It seems a shame to waste all this work, if the owners are not going to use it why not allow others? If successful they could always pay a royalty back to the original developers on every flight/craft sold.

If teams were to build on existing designs rather than starting from scratch this might shorten the time needed to produce something that can be launched. This might even plug the gap between the shuttle retiring and the CEV flying.

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

As far as I know no allowances, licences etc. to take over or to use concepts developed by others are required. Patents are given for Hardware only whereas to use of concepts requires clarification of the authors only.

May be there are ASP teams using existing concepts without saying that. There is one team that has switched over to orbital vehicles - I don't know this moment wether they entered the ASP and I never have heard anything about their orbital concept but they may have a concept similar to what we are discussing. I will have a look on their website.

You might be right that a team may not need anymore than to give the originator a credit for the original design but without a formal agreement the originator is not likely to hand over any data they have.

Some of these concepts have probably had testing performed on scale models or within wind tunnels and this would be very useful to the team building the orbital craft. The use of original drawings to work from and computer modelling could also be used.

Isn't SpaceDev using data on NASA's X-38 to help develop their Dreamchaser which they say will be scalable to an orbital craft? Maybe more colaborations like this could take place.

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

I had a look at the teams website now - it has been Microspace. I didn't get any new informations.

But I have to correct me - Microspace does launch vertical. So they don't make use of a special concept developed by others.

Concerning SpaceDev you are right. And it may be that they make use of Scaled's experiences too because it's interesting that they produced SSO's engine(s) and now are working to become a competitor of SSO, Scaled and Mojave.

But SpaceDev will need a few years until they are as close to the orbit as others may be or are really.

Originally designed to operate along side the shuttle, if they had continued work on it the US may have had an alternative to using Soyuz now and a vehicle to plug he gap between shuttle retirement and the CEV flying.

Its designed to carry 10 people and would easily be suitable for Bigelow's purposes. NASA should let someone develop this concept or possibly allow several groups to use all the data they have as part of a centennial prize to build an orbital vehicle based on it, that would be a competition worth seeing.

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The Russians appear to be getting behind their Kliper craft perhaps they would be willing to manufacture them like aeoplanes and sell them to private companies to run scheduled space flights. There displaying it in France for anyone who wants to get a closer look.

This would be a good source of revenue for their space program, 747s sell upwards of $200m that kind of price tag would inject a lot of cash. I believe the US is prohibited from buying Russian hardware under treaty though so it might only be for other countries. Still it makes life easier for any country wishing to have a manned space program if you can buy your space craft off the shelf.

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Didn't knew that they plan to have a first flight in 2010!... I think Kliper will be ready before the US cev

If the Russian economy remains on the more stable footing it has had for the last couple of years I think Kliper stands a pretty good chance of being built long before the CEV.

The article seems to say that they wont mind acting as a ferry service for anyone going to the ISS if the US focuses its CEV on the Moon or Mars. I see a financial sting coming if there is no alternative transport to the ISS.

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Heh, comparing the CEV to the Clipper is ridiculous. They do entirely different jobs.

The Clipper is basically a replacement for the Soyuz return capsule. A way to get astronauts into LEO, and back out of it. A lot of the technology used in it has been used before, and as far as I know, it's very near to completion already.

They basically started the Clipper when NASA pulled the plug on the crew return vehicle. Another similar vehicle is the proposed Hermes of ESA, although Hermes was meant to be a lot more capable than the Clipper - closer to a mini-shuttle.

Heh, comparing the CEV to the Clipper is ridiculous. They do entirely different jobs.

The Clipper is basically a replacement for the Soyuz return capsule. A way to get astronauts into LEO, and back out of it. A lot of the technology used in it has been used before, and as far as I know, it's very near to completion already.

The article above says that the Kliper is capable of undertaking lunar missions, so how does it differ from the CEV proposal. Any CEV produced before 2010 would probably have to be modified to undertake a Mars mission, so as far as I can see their capabilities will be similar.

If it is based on existing technology then it stands a better chance of succeeding than the CEV. I was under the impression that one of the guidelines used for producing CEV proposals was that it would not be reliant on technical breakthroughs or leaps in technology so that NASA could avoid another cancelled vehicle.

I dont think the Russians have made any flight hardware yet, they've made a paper study and created an engineering mock up but that is as far as they have come. I think that finance is still an issue at the moment and one reason for taking their mock-up to various shows is to get external funding if they can.

_________________A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Heh, comparing the CEV to the Clipper is ridiculous. They do entirely different jobs.

The Clipper is basically a replacement for the Soyuz return capsule. A way to get astronauts into LEO, and back out of it. A lot of the technology used in it has been used before, and as far as I know, it's very near to completion already.

They basically started the Clipper when NASA pulled the plug on the crew return vehicle. Another similar vehicle is the proposed Hermes of ESA, although Hermes was meant to be a lot more capable than the Clipper - closer to a mini-shuttle.

With adequare shielding there's no reason to think that Clipper could not be used for translunar operations. For that matter, Soyuz could almost be used that way now. IIRC, it would be possibly to outfit FGB-2 as a giant service module, launch it on a proton. Dock a soyuz to it, say a prayer to Korolev's ghost and hope for a happy fly-around.